[Richard Misenhimer] This is Side 2 of Tape 1
with Chris Walker.
(noise) Did this Colonel
get Congressional Medal of Honor?
[Chris Walker] No, he never did. (crosstalk)
He didn't get it,
but he'd come back to the headquarters company and say,
"I need some automatic weapon lads to go with me."
Well, my buddy and I
both had Thompson subs that we'd gotten illegally
(crosstalk) and he would
look at us (inaudible).
Yeah. Then he'd go to the engineers and say,
"I need a demolition man or two,
who will go with me".
Then he go to the flame throwers,
"I need a flame thrower or two who will
go me." That's what he meant.
Instead of sending a lieutenant up
that pill box, he went himself.
He was a lieutenant and a squat up there but I said,
he was GI but he was a good leader.
[Richard Misenhimer] He was a good leader.
[Chris Walker] He was an excellent leader.
He was just a kind of a leader
like you didn't mind a thought.
[Richard Misenhimer] He really did lead.
[Chris Walker] He really did lead.
[Richard Misenhimer] From the front, not the back.
[Chris Walker] When we went that top of that hill,
we were the first step there.
(laughing) When we were there he said,
"Oh man, I'm 94 years old", and 45.
[Richard Misenhimer] Which was an old man.
[Chris Walker] Yeah, he was a real old man,
but he was good.
[Richard Misenhimer] About how many days where you in combat there?
[Chris Walker] Oh, I imagine,
in all on the islands in there 10, 12 days.
I guess a very little combat.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. The only place was central canal,
it was two hours in central canal
and then open hour campaign.
What are some other things that happened there?
[Chris Walker] Well, I remember those shells from Missouri come over.
They sounded like a freight train.
(laughing) I'd still think
you could see them but they
kept telling me that I couldn't.
But you could hear them come on and
you'd bottom across god, hear them hit.
We had two or three escapes.
There we got shelled couple of times which can be nerve
wracking and we've got the buzz bombs shot at us more.
We pulled up one afternoon and I don't know where it was.
I guess we were tired and most of us worn.
We just kicked old scraped ground and I told my buddy,
I said, "That's deep enough for me."
He said, "Well, if that's deep enough for you,
it's deep enough for me."
They started shelling us with
those little small shells they
had and that went on about 30 minutes.
By the time they'd quit
shelling we'd done about two feet.
Solid coral.
Coral is bad as concrete.
We're down there and we've got tickled,
got looking up every time,
although they did go just
lobbying to me and they weren't fast but they were
lobbying to me and he
could hear them come over and we could hear him
explode and you can hear them coming in when
everything got real quiet and when they went off,
you can hear the picks and shovels used to
work and we got to live it out.
Then you can see the dirt coming out
like prairie dog, kidding, no doubt.
We laid down like that (inaudible).
How long, how big the world.
But that big around they came out of track,
shot him up twice I think or three times,
and then they tumbled over and
started to the ground and when we start to ground
we set off another blast and I shot him to the ground.
We call them screaming mimis.
That's what they sounded like.
[Richard Misenhimer] About as big as a 55 gallon barrel or what?
[Chris Walker] Oh, I think there's 8,
6, 7 feet long.
[Richard Misenhimer] Oh, okay.
[Chris Walker] Had big thing. Ever seen anything like that?
They shot him off before,
and by the time they got through
the shooting that off we we've done about four feet.
(laughing) They shot through them.
They sound like they own firework negative chasers.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah.
[Chris Walker] Well, that's what they sound like,
only a whole lot worse.
[Richard Misenhimer] But when they started
down they had some kind of proportion?
[Chris Walker] They did go into the rain
and when they headed down while
I had a blast and shot them down.
[Richard Misenhimer] I mean, they probably had a lot of explosive in that.
[Chris Walker] Yeah. Didn't do any harm.
There wasn't no guidance on it.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah. Okay. Wherever it hit it'd make a big hole in it?
[Chris Walker] But not as big as that hole.
What was that? Missouri had those 20 inches.
[Richard Misenhimer] 15 inch.
[Chris Walker] They have 16 inches.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah, 16 inches right.
[Chris Walker] One is big as eight, but yeah.
But then one time right on that ridge,
we got friendly fire.
I think that was one of the most devastating thing is
to go through friendly fire.
They were using this air blast shell had just come
out and they were shooting back and
reaching over and lobbying over
that hill right behind in front of us.
That hill was too high,
that hill was setting them off.
The magnetic force on that hill was setting them off.
We'll call back. We got to stop.
I don't think we lost any man from it,
but anything friendly fire.
I feel for these people in friendly fire,
but yeah, I feel for
those Canadians that got
killed every day by that (crosstalk) friendly fire.
But friendly fire is going to happen.
[Richard Misenhimer] Oh, yeah.
[Chris Walker] That just part of it.
[Richard Misenhimer] I read somewhere like 20 percent of
the casualties in World War II, were friendly fire.
[Chris Walker] (laughing) It could have been.
[Richard Misenhimer] Right. Now who was firing were artillery pieces firing?
[Chris Walker] Yeah. Army, I was an army artillery pieces,
it wasn't the ships,
it was artillery 105,
I believe there's 105 hours.
[Richard Misenhimer] Then when they hit,
what kind of an explosion? (noise)
[Chris Walker] They didn't hit, they just busted up the air.
[Richard Misenhimer] Air burst. Okay.
[Chris Walker] They just blew it up.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah, cool.
[Chris Walker] Foxhole was no good for those.
Shrapnel comes straight down.
Shrapnel comes out straight.
[Richard Misenhimer] All right.
[Chris Walker] Heard the most devastating things.
I know how people feel when they get into when they fire,
but if you get to control everything,
you wouldn't be much hurt anymore.
But you don't control much.
[Richard Misenhimer] You'll have a short round ever so
often, no matter what you know.
[Chris Walker] Of course, they tell me that on site PAM,
the 10th artillery,
10th of Marino artillery lands are charged
with lasting right out in 10 second fuse.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah. Canister shells. Ten-second fuse. (laughing)
[Chris Walker] That info out there.
[Richard Misenhimer] That's right. Yeah.
[Chris Walker] But that's about all my experiences.
The day the island was announced secure,
I had appendicitis operation.
I had appendicitis, and they sent me back,
and then put me in an army hospital.
I was supposed to go to a Navy hospital,
but when they sent me back
my little Piper Cub ambulance plane,
(noise) and when my plane landed, another plane landed,
and it was an army boy shot up,
and they just had one ambulance.
So they put me in with that army boy
and took me to an army hospital.
I later became missing in action.
Nobody knew where I was.
(laughing) I was in
that hospital and I had an appendix taken out
and operating table was
a piece of plywood over saw horses.
Operating room was a tent with a flap pulled
up and I never had any trouble at all with it.
They wanted to keep the hospital open,
so they kept me there instead of
sending me right back to Saipan.
They usually got the casualties
stable and then flew back
to Saipan to the big hospital there,
but they wanted to keep their hospital open.
The hospital filled up with mostly appendicitis cases.
The nurse said that after every battle,
hospitals filled up with appendicitis.
Didn't have any appendicitis during the battle (noise)
but after 21 days,
I got out there and joined the third amphibious marines.
I wanted to Guam with them.
They were going to keep us there,
and well they was going to send us home as casuals,
and the three of us knew that the war was not over with,
and we wanted to get back to Saipan
to our regular outfit,
it was all from the first bad eight,
and so they sent us to this other marine deal.
They were going to keep us and we asked to go
back and so they said they would.
They put us on a seaplane tender,
we had to take the seaside plane.
We were there when the news of the atomic bomb came out.
They dropped that first atomic bomb, I believe,
and they froze everything in the harbor,
wouldn't let anything leave and after a while,
we went back to Saipan and we had our ship loaded.
We were totally loaded.
When the Japanese asked for peace,
we were loaded to go in and our understanding,
that we were going in on
the southern end of the southern island. (inaudible)
[Richard Misenhimer] Let me back up. Now, where were you when you
got the appendicitis? On Okinawa?
[Chris Walker] On Okinawa.
[Richard Misenhimer] Where did they fly you to?
[Chris Walker] They set up those big hospitals
there on those beaches right after it.
[Richard Misenhimer] On Okinawa?
[Chris Walker] On Okinawa.
[Richard Misenhimer] So they just flew you from
one part of Okinawa to another?
[Chris Walker] Yeah. I was quite thrilled. Part of
it was trying to get me to lay down
and I was trying to see
Okinawa from there, I was raising up.
But night I had tact.
I knew what I had because I'd
had about three attacks in the State.
Every time I turned myself in,
the hospital would be full from casualties from
another island and they'd say we'll you're not ripe yet.
So I turned myself in and
the corpsman there took me back to
a battalion aid station
and I was laying there on the table.
I had a doctor
there and it was just tents, that's all it was.
He came in, the colonel came in and said,
"Chris, what's the matter?"
I said, "Well, I got appendicitis."
They said you turned yourself in sick
and I've come down here to see about you.
He turned to the doctor and said, "How bad is it?"
He said, "Well, he's got to be having surgery."
He said, "Well, are you going to do it here?"
He said, "Yeah, I've got to."
He said, "Are you equipped?"
He said, "Yeah, I think I'm equipped."
He said, "Let me see."
He got on the phone and said,
"Yeah, I'm sending you back to general hospital."
[Richard Misenhimer] There on the beach?
[Chris Walker] There on the beach, and so I did.
I was supposed to go to Navy hospital,
went to Army hospital.
Nobody knew anything about where I was.
I'd written some letters home but had to
go free because it didn't have a bill folding and mails.
They took all that stuff away from us in combat.
They didn't want us to have anything like that.
Pauline finally got a letter,
My daddy had finally got a letter.
But when I got back to Saipan,
I reported into company headquarters and they said,
"Hey, you're missing in action."
They sent me over to colonel and the colonel said,
"Chris, you're missing in action."
Said your seat bag is
down on the docs getting ready to be loaded to go
to Pearl Harbor and
said tomorrow your dad is going to get
a letter say you're mission in action,
said nobody knows where you've been.
I told him what it was and everything
and he said but we'll see if we can get it stopped.
Dad didn't ever did get that and of
all the things I believe the service did for me,
was stopping that (crosstalk) telegram.
[Richard Misenhimer] That letter.
That would have been devastating to your parents.
[Chris Walker] Yeah. But my daddy.
My mother had died but
he would have been very disdained, daddy.
Because he had me in the Marines and had
his brother in the Navy in the little aircraft carrier.
He was in thick about it all the time. (music playing)
[Richard Misenhimer] Now, in Okinawa,
the Army General Buckner got killed.
You recall where you were?
[Chris Walker] (noise) We had just been up there to see him.
I don't know whether he had called the colonel up or not,
but the colonel was there and we had just left,
the colonel and I just had just left.
I guess we'd been gone 20,
30 minutes when they zeroed in on him.
They fired one shot
for location and then zeroed in right where he was.
They were good. They were good.
[Richard Misenhimer] What did you think of Buckner,
did you have any opinion of him?
[Chris Walker] I thought he was good general. I thought he was.
I thought all of
our generals over there was real
good except old dug-out Doug.
(laughing). I had no use for him.
(laughing) But I thought he was all right.
I thought the general that got to replace him was,
what was it, Stillwell?
[Richard Misenhimer] No, but it might have been, I forget now.
[Chris Walker] I think it's Stillwell. What was his name?
[Richard Misenhimer] Vinegar Joe?
[Chris Walker] Vinegar Joe, yeah.
[Richard Misenhimer] I think it was, yeah.
[Chris Walker] He was a real general.
It cost a whole lot casualties.
I didn't know the battle plans. (noise)
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah.
[Chris Walker] (noise) I turned your thing off again.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] I had mentioned that I'd gotten
the Thompson subs illegally.
My buddy and I had Thompson subs
and we'd gotten them illegally on (noise)
that trip to Okinawa.
When we got back to our base, well,
when I got back, he had already taken
the Thompson sub and put it
up and he'd taken the other Thompson sub and put it up.
It was the only ship getting ready to leave for Japan
and the Colonel gave
Fitzgerald and I back our Thompson subs.
(noise) Because we didn't know what kind of conditions
we would landing on but we were
landing under combat conditions.
It was one of the first troops going to be in Japan.
[Richard Misenhimer] This is after the war?
[Chris Walker] This is after the war.
So they pulled a sneak inspection on
us and so we went to that inspection,
a gear inspection and everything else
and the General drew us to inspect.
Now the General had been a Corporal
when the Colonel had been a
Private and he had
always been one jump ahead of the Colonel.
He was gym mate to the Colonel.
He drew us.
He stepped in front of me with
that Thompson sub and I had
it slung on my shoulder
and I didn't move it off from my shoulder.
He stepped in front of Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald did same thing I did.
He went in, round and back of me.
I did not do anything.
Some of those you open the boat?
I didn't do nothing, I just stood the there,
stiff as a board.
He went the other way and Fitzgerald
did the same thing and we passed inspection.
We had not more got to the barracks,
I mean to the tents and everything and got relieved
a little bit and the word came over,
"Chris, Colonel wants to see you".
I go over there and
I'm standing there in front of him and
he puts me at ease and he said,
"Chris, is that the way
you stand inspection with a Thompson sub?"
See Thompson sub were not issued to Marines.
And I said," Sir, I don't know."
Since I did not know,
I thought the best thing to do is not do nothing.
He looked at me and grinned and he said that,
"If the General ever inspects you again with
that Thompson sub and you do the same thing."
After it's all over this he asked me,
Was that the way you stood
at inspection with the Thompson sub?
And I told him, "Yes, Sir. "
(laughing) As if they
don't already know what I'm saying..
[Richard Misenhimer] It's a regular equipment, they didn't know.
[Chris Walker] We stole it off from the ship.
We had that thing spied.
It's a little arm rail on the ship, the last rail.
That said he was GI.
We knew what ship (inaudible) was both being.
We weren't supposed to be with him that time
and so we waited until
the last call to hit in our Amtrak.
We went by and busted glass out through
our M1s over the side and grabbed those Thompson subs.
When I jumped over inside that Amtrak,
I landed right in front of him
(laughing) (inaudible) behind him.
He looked at me with that Thompson sub.
I knew it was (inaudible).
I really did. I knew he was GI.
He looked at Fitzgerald
and he looked back at me and said,
"How much ammunition you got?"
I said, "About 40 rounds, Sir."
"How many you got,
Fitzgerald," "About 40 rounds, sir."
He said, "There's a whole box
of 45 ammunition over at fill up."
That was all was ever said.
When we got to Japan with those guns,
he came by after things settle
down and took them away from us.
He came over and said, " I want my Thompson subs."
He said that we may need these things,
and said, "Nobody's going to look under my bed."
Sir, we're looking under your bed."
I don't know whatever happened to those Thompson subs,
I imagine he got home with them.
[Richard Misenhimer] Tell me about this, you told me a while ago,
about this windmill laundry. How does it work?
[Chris Walker] Well, we had Seabees on the island. They kept us going.
[Richard Misenhimer] Now this is which Island?
[Chris Walker] Saipan.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] And they were good to us.
Seabees are always good to the Marines and we liked them.
The Colonel wanted one of
these windmill washing machines made.
He went down and got parts
and got Seabees to make the parts
for him and brought them back and asked me
to build a tower and put it all together.
I did, carried it over to him.
[Richard Misenhimer] And how does this work?
[Chris Walker] Wind blew the van,
the van was fixed on a crankshaft and the crankshaft had
a pinion that went up and
down and that jogged those clothes up and down.
[Richard Misenhimer] And how big was the container clothes were in?
[Chris Walker] Five-gallon bucket.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] It didn't stand up about three feet tall.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] (noise) He told me
it was working good and he wanted to give me something.
So he took me in his tent and offered me
a big old bottle of whiskey.
Been afraid of it, not drinking and not wanting to drink.
I just told him I didn't drink
that stuff and I didn't take it.
He looked at me for a while, put it down,
reach down the bed,
pulled out a case of beer,
hand that to him and I told him,
"Colonel, l don't drink that stuff either."
He held it there and dismissed me.
I don't know what he ever did with
the beer, whether he put it down.
(laughing) But I sure did
get eat out when I got back because I didn't get beer.
I told him about the whiskey and beer and my boy sure did
eat me out about it because
I didn't bring it back for him,
but I didn't drink it and I
wouldn't even give anything to them to drink.
But from then on the old man was real good to me.
I don't know why from that I figured he
would take that as an insult,
but somehow he didn't.
[Richard Misenhimer] This is after Okinawa or before?
[Chris Walker] This was before Okinawa.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. Then when you finally left Okinawa,
when did you leave Okinawa?
[Chris Walker] On board the ship?
I don't know when that was.
They said I've lost about all my date.
I'd gotten out of the hospital and joined
then third amphibious Marine Corps,
and then back to Guam.
[Richard Misenhimer] And you were preparing to invade Japan at that point?
[Chris Walker] We were planning.
That were our plan.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. Then when the atomic bomb
was dropped, you were in Guam?
[Chris Walker] The first one, I think I was.
When they dropped the atomic bomb, I don't know.
I think I was in Guam when they dropped the first time.
[Richard Misenhimer] August 6th and August
the 9th were the two days they dropped them.
[Chris Walker] Okay. I must have been there.
We thought it was propaganda.
We didn't see, I didn't think it could work like that.
But when we landed in Japan,
we landed at Nagasaki.
[Richard Misenhimer] Oh, did you?
[Chris Walker] I saw then that it wasn't propaganda,
that you just can't get
from pictures and things what that thing did.
[Richard Misenhimer] Now, when you heard about the atomic
bomb dropping, of course,
you couldn't fathom anything
being that large and doing that.
Then, of course, in a couple of days, a few days,
Japan surrendered on August 14th.
[Chris Walker] I think we were all in Japan.
I was on Saipan when Japan surrendered.
[Richard Misenhimer] That's Saipan.
[Chris Walker] We left the next day or two, right on after.
[Richard Misenhimer] Well, when you did get news it surrendered,
was there any celebration?
[Chris Walker] No.
[Richard Misenhimer] No?
[Chris Walker] No. We didn't celebrate,
most of us figured we were going to be there
another year or two before we'd go and get home.
[Richard Misenhimer] Then you left Saipan and went to Japan?
[Chris Walker] Yes.
[Richard Misenhimer] How did you go over to Japan?
[Chris Walker] On ship, attack personnel.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. Another APA?
[Chris Walker] APA, yeah.
[Richard Misenhimer] Now, while you were on Guam,
did you see the B29s this time?
[Chris Walker] We heard them and saw them, yeah.
[Richard Misenhimer] You were close to where they were?
[Chris Walker] No. They were, let's see,
I don't know where they were on Guam and I don't
even know where we were on Guam. I have no idea.
Now we watched them when we're back on
Saipan and I guess before we went to Okinawa,
we watched them go out and come in.
They got to where they're
just leaving out and coming back,
not flying in formation.
They were flying out and come back.
I was at radio shack one day,
and one old boy was coming in from bombing
Japan and they were
trying to give him coordinates on
how land there on Saipan,
because Saipan rose up above the water.
He started coming in and I said,
"You can't land, you're not high enough."
He flew around again and they told him, "Well,
you can't land, you're not high enough."
He made three rounds,
(noise) and on the third round, I said,
" You're still a little bit inch or two to land."
On the fourth round, I think it's
the fourth round, both pilots said,
"I've either got to land or ditch it, I'm out of gas."
When it got lined up they said, "Well,
come on in, you've got about an inch to spin."
But they talked about, we saw reports
about 100 planes going
over and 100 didn't come back safely why?
Those planes are coming back
full of holes and everything else torn into pieces down.
[Richard Misenhimer] It's so quite to even come back that way.
[Chris Walker] Either (inaudible) or flyers.
(noise) They were good.
(laughing) Imagine to gain altitude
to land. (laughing) (crosstalk).
[Richard Misenhimer] Now, when you landed in Nagasaki then,
this is somewhere around 1st September?
[Chris Walker] Yeah, somewhere in there.
[Richard Misenhimer] Because September 2nd was
the ceremony on the Missouri when they surrender.
[Chris Walker] We were on Saipan when they went through that ceremony.
We left some time after that.
[Richard Misenhimer] It was sometime in September then you landed in Nagasaki.
Was this the first battalion or eight regimen or what?
[Chris Walker] I think the whole (noise) second marines landed.
[Richard Misenhimer] Second Marine Division. Then when
you landed in Nagasaki, what did you do there?
[Chris Walker] Well, we started immediately patrolling.
The first thing we did we endured,
after that we went to a C-plane base out of Nagasaki.
We hadn't been there for just a few days
until one of this typhoons came through.
I got to the experience a typhoon.
(laughing) It was rough.
We were patrolling, checking out things.
[Richard Misenhimer] Were you actually in the city of Nagasaki?
[Chris Walker] No this was a little town outside Nagasaki.
[Richard Misenhimer] You didn't actually go through Nagasaki?
[Chris Walker] We went through to Nagasaki.
We landed at the port.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] When we saw the destruction, we went through it.
We made some trips over there, illegally.
Then from there we went to
Kumamoto and stayed there for a while.
[Richard Misenhimer] Where is that?
[Chris Walker] I think about the middle of the island.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. Now, are you on the main island?
[Chris Walker] No, on the Southern Island.
[Richard Misenhimer] Hokkaido, is it?
[Chris Walker] Yeah.
[Richard Misenhimer] On Hokkaido, right.
[Chris Walker] Kumamoto, after I went to school,
after what was in seminary,
I found out they had one of
the greatest spiritual Christian revival at
Kumamoto than they've ever had at any place in
the world, sometime back.
[Richard Misenhimer] Before the war.
[Chris Walker] But as we woke up,
and everybody holla,
"Get on deck when you see land."
We were out from Nagasaki.
Somebody had gotten a big high-powered binoculars.
They were Japs.
Somebody picked him up on Okinawa.
I looked through those things and
the first thing I saw was a church steeple.
It was a Methodist Church.
I was utterly shocked.
But it was in good shape, it was a beautiful,
American style, steeple church,
(noise) but actually I was surprised.
[Richard Misenhimer] That was there at Nagasaki?
[Chris Walker] Nagasaki.
[Richard Misenhimer] It had survived?
[Chris Walker] It had survived.
[Richard Misenhimer] Who are the city survived?
If I understood it right a range of
mountains here in the harbor
was in here and they dropped it back here,
and one blast came this way,
the other blast hit the mountain and came back.
[Chris Walker] The first one didn't get, the second one did.
We were down at Kumamoto for a while,
that was the eighth Marines,
I think was at Kumamoto.
First Battalion left and went
to the very southern tip of Japan.
[Richard Misenhimer] Of the main Island or still on Hokkaido?
[Chris Walker] On Hokkaido, on the Southern Island.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah.
[Chris Walker] We were on southern tip.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] There was a little volcano there
that I wanted to climb worst of all,
and I'd just gotten permission to climb when I
got (laughing) the chance to come home,
so I'll postpone climbing that volcano.
It was smoking. The whole
time Japanese there told us that don't worry about it,
as long as it smokes, it's all right,
when it stops smoking, be careful.
But I had another experience early with the colonel,
(noise) and the general there at that place.
We were stationed in a school, of course,
we were not supposed to be all the other schools,
but we were stationed in school because that city,
90 percent of the city was totally destroyed,
and only 10 percent of that other 10 percent was livable.
That's where I think we were going to make
our first attack on Japan right there.
I don't know whether it was with the school or with
a manufacturing deal that was by there,
but there was a smoke tower there.
Every bit 150 feet tall, big tall thing.
[Richard Misenhimer] Smokestack you say?
[Chris Walker] Smokestack. I don't know
how come it was left standing but it was.
(noise) I wanted to climb that thing.
I don't know big would,
the base was 30-40 feet to base diameter circumference.
(noise) (crosstalk) Up the top,
it was about three feet,
it had about 18 inch hole down on it
(noise) One day when
I knew nobody was going to be around,
I climbed that thing,
and I stood on top of that thing,
and I looked all around,
I could see for miles.
I just had the best view
anybody ever had other than on airplane.
I was enjoying my view,
and I haven't looked down,
and there was the Colonel and the General,
standing there looking up at me.
I don't know how long they had been there.
(laughing) I be lying I was on top there 20,30 minutes,
because I was thoroughly enjoying myself.
I came down,
there were Colonels (inaudible) now
(laughing) I got down.
they walked up to me and I come to attention,
saluted nice, they saluted me back.
The General said, " Son,
how is the view up there?"
Well, I knew when to exit definitely.
I said, "Sorry, it was wonderful."
(laughing) What was there for saying?
They dismiss me and I salute him
now(laughing) Colonel saw me after that.
"I'll kick your pants all the
way to (inaudible) "
Now the General when I got
there and asked me how the view was,
(noise) I told him it was really fine,
he turned to the Colonel and said,
"You better put a no posted sign
on that." (laughing) "Yes sir."
The colonel said, "I ought to kick you
all the way to the brig."
He said, "I don't want anything to do with that."
(laughing) He was a daredevil.
He always trusted in me
because I made it so
he could find a (inaudible) (laughing)
[Richard Misenhimer] Now how did you climb it? (crosstalk)
[Chris Walker] It had a ladder on it. (crosstalk)
[Richard Misenhimer] Oh, it had a ladder on it.
[Chris Walker] All the way to the top.
I remember, we've got to climb that thing right now.
(laughing) Yeah.
But I wanted to see the view from up top.
Of course, the Marine Corps had a deal,
it's legal to do
anything unless you're told not to do it.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. You could do anything you were not told not to do?
[Chris Walker] Yeah. While I was in the hospital a bunch of us had
an operation about the same time where after thereabout a
week we decided we'd go to
the beach about 300 or 400 yards,
500, maybe 600 yards so we went down there.
Of course we wasn't feeling good but we went down
there and looked around,
skipped rocks over the water
and everything else and came back.
I met an army nurse there,
captain and she was high-spirited. She was a good nurse.
The only real eating
out I ever got in the service was from her.
She ate me out for running off and boy, she ate me out.
She said, "Didn't you know
that you weren't supposed to go down there?"
I said, "No,
ma'am, wasn't nothing said not to go to the beach."
She said, "We've got the MPs
and everybody else out after you,
half the crew's out looking for you.
We thought some Japs had carried you all off."
I said, "Well, we didn't see any ma'am."
That army bunch, the rest of them was
army in there and they just let me do the talking.
She was hot under the collar and finally she said,
"Don't you know, you're not supposed to go down there?"
I said, "Ma'am, in the Marine Corps,
only thing you don't
do in the Marine Corps is what you're told not to do.
You can do anything you're big enough to."
I said, "We thought we was big enough to and we did."
I don't know whether she laughed then or was she
just so hot under the collar
she turned around and walked off.
(laughing) That was my deal with a army captain.
(laughing) She threw her rank at me. (laughing)
[Richard Misenhimer] You were still a PFC, right?
[Chris Walker] I was corporal then.
[Richard Misenhimer] A corporal, okay.
[Chris Walker] (laughing) But that didn't make any difference,
if I had been a general.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah.
[Chris Walker] She'd have got me. (laughing)
[Richard Misenhimer] What were some other things?
[Chris Walker] Right off hand, I can't think of anything.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. You left Japan around when?
[Chris Walker] We left that Southern island and went to,
I think you pronounce it (inaudible).
There, what they did,
they took the men with 50 points or
more and took them and we joined
with the fifth marine division and
all the low point men in
the fifth marine division went to the second.
[Richard Misenhimer] I see.
[Chris Walker] They carried the fifth home to deactivate it.
When we got off board ship there in San Diego,
I guess over half of
the men got off with the fifth division.
We wore second division patches.
They let us wear our second division patches.
They even had those on
our uniform when we were dismissed but I
actually came home with the (noise) fifth division.
[Richard Misenhimer] About when did you land then?
[Chris Walker] We left Japan on the 18th day of December.
We landed in San Diego on the 28th of December.
(laughing) That's the first-time Christmas
was ever other than the 25th.
But Christmas was the 28th of December that year.
[Richard Misenhimer] Now when the ship coming back on Christmas day,
did you have anything special then?
[Chris Walker] I don't remember.
I had it special on that ship all the way home.
[Richard Misenhimer] What is it?
[Chris Walker] That ship was really incapacitated.
It's two boilers were bad and the captain
of the ship had the privilege of doing one or two things.
He could try to get us home or he can go to
Pearl Harbor and get the boilers fixed,
come back and get us.
Take about three months and bring us home.
That was our ship. He said, load them up.
He ran on one boiler most of the time.
He would get on one boiler,
they'd cool the other one off and work on
it until the other boiler went
almost out and then they switched back and
forth but when I got on board ship,
I hadn't been on board ship just
a few hours until I got a call to come
to the what do you call that place (crosstalk).
[Richard Misenhimer] The bridge or (crosstalk)?
[Chris Walker] Bridge. To come to the bridge.
I went to the bridge and the captain of the ship said,
"I hear you're a carpenter." I said, "Yes, sir."
He said, "I'll make you a proposition.
If you will work in the carpenter shop on the way home,
we'll give you the full privileges of crew.
That means (noise) I will
see that you pull no duties as a Marine.
You just work from 8:00
to 5:00 in the carpenter shop going home."
So I have full privileges of crew.
Well, with the ship being crippled like that,
they can only make just enough for the necessities.
The crew got two meals a day.
I got three meals.
(laughing) The crew could take
a bath every second or third day,
I could take a bath any time I want to.
I had it really nice on board ship.
That was the nicest.
I didn't have to stand inspection and nothing.
I worked in carpenter shop and about all
we did in that carpenter shop,
(noise) was to build footlockers or suitcases.
They were not footlocker they were suitcases for
the officers and the upper enlisted men.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah.
[Chris Walker] I still got mine.
(laughing) When I wanted to get off on
board ship and you might turn
this off this I don't need to go.
[Richard Misenhimer] They say the Marine Corps.
[Chris Walker] The Marine Corps had a policy.
I guess it's unwritten
that there was managing and stealing.
Managing was getting it from the government,
stealing was from individuals.
Managing was all right unless you got caught.
Stealing was strictly prohibited.
[Richard Misenhimer] That way, you could trust your stuff to be safe.
[Chris Walker] Always.
[Richard Misenhimer] All right.
[Chris Walker] But I don't know if anything ever got stolen.
A lot managed for. (laughing)
[Richard Misenhimer] Yeah, we called that midnight
requisitioning when I was in a service.
[Chris Walker] Yeah.
[Richard Misenhimer] Now, when you landed
in San Diego, you say?
[Chris Walker] Yes.
[Richard Misenhimer] What kind of ship or boat
that you were in when coming back?
[Chris Walker] Oh, those attack personnel.
[Richard Misenhimer] Another APA.
[Chris Walker] Another APA.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] Let me make this note.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] The ship that I went overseas on was a AP,
I want to say 27, 28?
[Richard Misenhimer] I forgot it now, yeah.
[Chris Walker] Something. USS (inaudible),
of course they got names on them but
the first license plate that I ever bought for
a car when I got
my first car was
AP27, same thing as those (crosstalk).
[Richard Misenhimer] Just by accident?
[Chris Walker] Just by accident. We stopped
to get that license plate but I didn't.
[Richard Misenhimer] When you landed back in San Diego, you say?
[Chris Walker] Yes.
[Richard Misenhimer] What did you do there?
[Chris Walker] (noise) We boarded trucks with the campaign money.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] Went out to a place that they called (inaudible) camp,
I believe number 1 and it was (inaudible) then.
We were probably going to stay there for
two or three weeks to get everything lined up.
Our battalion staff had
worked all the way home on board ship getting
our records in shape and they had
a space open and nobody ready except
for our group so they shipped us
right in and we got out real quick.
We got out about two weeks earlier
than we thought we would.
[Richard Misenhimer] Where were you discharged there? That camp?
[Chris Walker] At camp (inaudible). Yes.
[Richard Misenhimer] They sent you home?
[Chris Walker] Yes, sent me home.
[Richard Misenhimer] How did you get home?
[Chris Walker] Train.
[Richard Misenhimer] Train. Okay. Pullman this time?
[Chris Walker] No, it wasn't (noise).
It's just the car.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay. Let me ask you about
what ribbons or medals did you get?
[Chris Walker] I got the Asiatic-Pacific,
one star, I got the good conduct.
[Richard Misenhimer] Did the marines get the combat (inaudible) badge?
[Chris Walker] No. I did get a deal.
I don't know, it's on the discharge.
I've got that one star,
a Pacific medal star.
[Richard Misenhimer] Okay.
[Chris Walker] Yes. Then I got the good medal.
There was another one for being
in the service in the States for so long.
[Richard Misenhimer] Yes. Home defense (crosstalk)
[Chris Walker] Home defense or something.
[Richard Misenhimer] All right.
[Chris Walker] That one started out to
be a medal for the men who were in
the service when the war
broke out and so many men didn't get overseas,
didn't have any kind of campaign ribbon.
They brought that into effect.
Of course, all I was with
the second marines and even when I've been discharged,
the second marines had won a present.